


a fish hook, an open eye

by sagesprouts



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Natsuya is a bit of a fuckboy, Pining, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Relationships, he’s trying his best and I love him... but he sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 19:14:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16414280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagesprouts/pseuds/sagesprouts
Summary: One time when you were 17, he read a poem to you over the phone.You fit into melike a hook into an eyea fish hookan open eyeAnd you felt sick.What does it mean?he asked.I need to write about it for my English class, and it’s due tomorrow.It’s easy,you wanted to say,if you think about it like this: you are the hook, and I am the eye, and we are doomed.I’m not going to do your homework for youis what you said instead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was just going to be straight up angst, but everyone on twitter wanted it to have a happy ending so I guess that’s how it is.
> 
> The soundtrack for this fic is basically the entire Transatlanticism album by Death Cab For Cutie on repeat.

He blusters into your life again the same as always, a mess of brown hair and broken promises. You know not to believe a word he says, (you’ve known this for a long time Nao, come on,) but you let him grab your hand anyway and lead you to the bedroom of your own apartment. You’d like to ask what makes him think he has the right, after everything, but both of you already know that you’d already forgiven him the moment he showed up at your front door. You always do.  
  
He pulls you down next to him onto your mattress and kisses your neck. (You wonder why he is the only one who can break you open this way.)  
  
_Nao_ , he moans against your skin, and you shiver. (You, always in control, never without a smile and some soft but stern advice, you who can fix everyone’s problems except your own.)  
  
_Nao, I missed you_. (You ask the difficult questions for others, but you don’t dare ask yourself.)  
  
He’s warm, so warm, and his lips taste sickly sweet when he kisses you. You try so, so hard not to lose yourself in this, in him, but you were doomed from the start.

After so many years you know exactly what he likes, how to make him unravel underneath you. Whatever the two of you are is not ideal, and truthfully it’s probably not healthy for either of you, but at least it’s something. You pin his wrists against the bed, gripping harder than necessary and leaving half-moon bruises from your fingernails for him to think about later. _Beg_ , you say, and he does. There’s always something frantic about it, the first time you see him after so long. This _want_ , so tightly coiled in both of you, the air thick with love and lust and need and hurt and the magnetism that always pulls you back to him whether you like it or not (and you do, you like it, a lot more than you care to admit.)  
  
It wasn’t always this way. There was a point when you were both too young to know better. (You couldn’t have known, you tell yourself, but that’s not true. He’s never been any good at staying in one place. You knew that, you just thought that it was different with you, that somehow you could tame him.)

You were young and clumsy and you didn’t know what you were doing, only that it had felt right. The first time, you had wanted to give him the world. You planted kisses reverently across every inch of his skin, tangled together on bedsheets dappled with sunlight. Now, in your dark bedroom, you pull his hair and fuck him deep and rough. He whines and pleads and moans your name over and over like a prayer, _Nao I love you Nao I missed you you’re so perfect fuck Nao oh fuck yes keep going I love you I love you I_ \- and you say nothing. You’ve learned that it’s better to say nothing at all than something that you don’t mean, or worse, something that you do.  
  
(You can’t tame the sun, you know now, can’t harness it or bottle it or hold it down. No matter how bright the day, darkness will always take over, and it will become night.)

 

Wordlessly, you leave to clean up, to wash your face and brush your teeth and get ready for bed like any of this is normal. You have class tomorrow, you remind yourself, and you’re not going to let him disrupt the routine that you’ve built without him around. When you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, bruises blooming on your neck and shoulder where he was biting down, you wonder whether they’ll stay for longer than he does and decide that it’s best not to think about it. By the time you make your way back to your room he’s already made himself at home under your blankets, even though you know that he never gets cold. You could call his bluff, tell him to sleep on the couch, but you both know you won’t.  
  
“Babe,” he drawls, motioning to the side of the bed that he knows is yours.  
  
“Natsuya,” you reply, and stand in the doorway for a moment, watching him watch you. It’s him who’s calling your bluff, and you wonder when the tables turned. Maybe it was when he left for America, or maybe it was when he never came back, but you know there was a time long ago when you still had the upper hand (and then, suddenly, you didn’t). You sigh, surrendering, and make your way towards the bed.  
  
(You are always surrendering to him in one way or another, even when it looks otherwise. What else is there to do when confronted with a force of nature?)  
  
“Mmm,” he lets out a sound of contentment as he wraps himself around you. “I needed this. I missed you.” His arms are strong from swimming, and in this moment he feels solid, tangible, present.  
  
“So you’ve said.”  
  
“Be nice,” he whines, “I just flew all the way from Australia.” Even though your back is turned, you know exactly what the expression on his face looks like. It’s the same pout he wore when you called him out for skipping swim club in junior high, or all the times you wouldn’t let him copy your homework. It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when things were so simple.  
  
“I don’t have to be nice,” you say. “Not only did you show up unannounced, but you didn’t even have the decency to do it at a reasonable hour.”  
  
“I wanted to see you.”  
  
You wonder if he has any idea what he puts you through, how exhausting it is to love him, and how all it takes is his presence to fall back into that bad habit. He hasn’t changed, but you have: being without him feels empty, like you’re only ever whole when he’s around.  
  
(It makes sense, you think. The moon needs the sun in order to shine, but the sun doesn’t care one way or the other. It just shines, regardless.)  
  
That night, you sleep more soundly than you have since the last time he left.

 

In the morning, the first thing you become aware of is the warmth of him still next to you in bed, arms wrapped protectively around you like you’re the most precious thing in the world. You’ve experienced this moment before, many times, but somewhere in the back of your mind it still makes you nervous. (The longer he stays, the harder it is when he leaves again.) You watch the rise and fall of his chest while he sleeps, letting your face relax into a soft smile, only for a moment, only because you know he won’t see. The morning sunlight pours over him, and he is _real_ , he is here and you are just as in love with him as you’ve always been.  
  
(You don’t go to class that day, but you already knew you wouldn’t. You’d known that from the moment you saw him standing at your front door.)  
  
At nearly 3 in the afternoon he stumbles out of your bedroom, jetlagged, hung over, and absolutely perfect. He stops in the doorway and his expression melts into a smile as soon as he sees you. You blink back at him, emotionless. (You’re smart, so smart, and you’ve learned. Natsuya is just like water: the tighter you try to hold onto him, the quicker he slips through your fingers).  
  
The first thing out of his mouth is “Good morning, beautiful,” and inwardly, some unidentifiable emotion twists tighter in your chest. Outwardly, you are unfazed.  
  
“It’s afternoon.”  
  
“Shit,” he says, “I guess that last flight kind of messed me up.” He rubs his eyes. “Jeez, it’s bright out here.”  
  
“You’re hungover.” He shrugs.  
  
“C’est la vie,” he says, which would sound completely stupid coming from anyone other than him. “I’ll be fine if I sleep better tonight.”  
  
“You’d sleep better if you ever let yourself get used to one time zone.”  
  
“I’d sleep better if I was sleeping next to you every night,” he says with a wink. Your heart skips. Inwardly, you curse it for doing this to you, you curse him for doing this to you again, you curse yourself for answering the door last night, for being the one to kiss him first all those years ago, for being Icarus, hopelessly in love with the one thing that can (and will) destroy you. Outwardly, you roll your eyes.

 

You order takeout, because he told you how much he missed home-cooked meals and you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. This is how it is now, a game of tug of war, calling each other’s bluffs. He’s sharp and charming and he _knows_ you, knows how to get under your skin or under your clothes or under the sheets of your bed (it’s not like he has anywhere else to stay), but you know he doesn’t have the patience that you do. (Once, years ago, you tried to teach him how to play chess. He sat there for half an hour, letting you explain, and only then told you he couldn’t concentrate because of how pretty you look when you talk about the things you love. You wonder how you look when you talk about him.)  
  
You pass the time watching something stupid on TV and letting him tell you about his latest adventure, and when the shadows of evening start to lengthen across the walls, you push him down on the couch, straddling his hips and pinning him down, grinding against him painstakingly slow and making him whine with anticipation. He doesn’t have the patience that you do, and so this is where you shine: this sweet spot between teasing and torture. Running your tongue lightly along the lines of his jaw and his neck, pulling back when he pushes ahead, waiting for the last gasping breaths of daylight to disappear, this is what you live for.  
  
_Fuck, Nao_ , he moans loudly, and you reward him by kissing your way down all the way from his chest to his hipbones and giving him a few tentative licks through the fabric of his boxers. You like it when he’s loud, when he has your name on his lips and you both know the walls of your apartment are paper thin. You want to hear him to say it again and again, because you’re still foolish enough to get off on the thought of claiming him as yours in whatever small ways you can.  
  
When you finally take him into your mouth, he involuntarily thrusts his hips up to meet you. _No_ , you tell him, with a swat to his thigh. You pull back, licking lightly again for a while and watching him come undone from his need. _Why should I let you cum,_ you whisper to him, _why do you deserve it?_  
  
_I don’t_ , is the answer he manages to choke out, and it’s the only correct one.  
  
_That’s right,_ you tell him, _you don’t_. But because you like the way he looks at you when he’s close to the edge, and you like the way your name sounds when his voice is laced with lust, you lick and suck him until he cums down your throat and you convince yourself that you are the one in control.

 _Fuck Nao_ , he says again, once he’s coherent. _I love you_. His hair is full of sweat, sticking up at an odd angle. The whole room smells of sex, and he looks beautiful, radiant. You say nothing.

 

You are in bed, half asleep. He’s lying next to you like that’s where he belongs, like he has any right to be here, and that’s when he speaks the answer to the question that’s been on your mind. 

“I’m going to stay,” he says, out of the blue. You go tense, and he notices. “Do you trust me?”  
  
“Should I?” you ask.  
  
He laughs, and you debate just getting up and leaving the bed, the apartment, the city. You wonder if this is how he feels all the time.  
  
“I guess that’s a loaded question, but I think you should. I want you to.”  
  
“Don’t do this again. Please don’t.”  
  
He holds you a little closer, and you can feel his breath on your neck when he speaks. “Well, come on, what’s a relationship without trust?”  
  
“Natsuya, this isn’t a relationship.” Despite your better judgement, you turn to face him.  
  
“What are you talking about? Of course it is,” he says, smiling as brightly as the sun itself, enough to blind you if you weren’t careful.  
  
Thankfully, you’ve always been careful.  
  
“Go to sleep,” you say.

 

You know you can’t skip class again. You know this, but an invisible force is keeping you fixed to the bed. (If you leave, will he still be here once you return?) Instead, you watch the sunrise slowly paint the wall in shades of golden and pink, listening to the sounds of the city waking up. By the time you manage to coerce yourself out of bed, half of your schedule has come and gone. It sickens you how easy it is to let this happen. (You are control, personified. If you don’t have that, you don’t have anything.)  
  
You would never admit that you’re still holding out for him to settle down, not out loud anyway, but it’s true that you haven’t dated since he left. Not _because_ of him, you insist if pressed, but it’s true that he is more than just your first love. He is your only love, your always love, taking up so much space in your heart that sometimes it’s hard to breathe with the weight of the things he makes you feel. He was your first time too, and the only times that have ever mattered since. You assume he has much more experience in that area than you do now (and while you know assuming is wrong, it would be much more painful to know for certain, so you haven’t asked. Not once, in all these years).  
  
“Don’t you have to go to class?” he asks when he makes his way into the living room, mid-afternoon.  
  
“My classes are already over,” you say easily. “It’s not my fault that you wasted your whole day in bed.”

 

Three days pass, and you are still waking up next to him, still falling asleep in his arms, still holding him down and making him gasp and yell and beg, still tiptoeing around the things you wish you could say. You begin to settle into a new routine around him, surrendering. You stop to touch the bruises from the first night every time you pass a mirror, and they’ve been fading. Somehow, he is still here, still real.  
  
That night you decide to relent and cook dinner, if only because your wallet can't survive much more of your stubbornness. He surprises you by offering his help without being asked.  
  
"We're having yakisoba," you tell him, because you haven't cooked a proper meal for days and you refuse to let your vegetables go bad.  
  
As you start to prepare the chicken breast, he walks in like he belongs here, opens the fridge, and pulls out some ingredients. You don't acknowledge him yet, because really, it's the bare minimum he could do.  
  
"You don't have sriracha," he whines. He's on his hands and knees in front of the fridge, rummaging around and making a mess of the tidy shelves.  
  
"Don't need it," you say, simply.  
  
"But _babe_ ," he drags out the term of endearment, and you roll your eyes at him. "You know I like sriracha."  
  
"Well, you don't live here, and I do." You shoo him out of the fridge, steer him to the counter with the vegetables and a knife, like he's a child.  
  
"I could," he pouts. Inwardly, you can feel your pulse throughout your whole body, and you're dizzy. Right now, in your tiny kitchen with the hum of the refrigerator, the steady thwack of his knife on the cutting board, golden light filtering through the small window and the smell of dish soap and fresh ginger and _him_ , it really feels possible.  
  
Outwardly, completely composed, you sigh and reach over to tousle his hair. "Start paying rent," you tell him, "then we'll talk."  
  
You move about the kitchen together, he boils the water for the udon and you sauté the grated ginger in a pan of oil, adding the strips of chicken one by one in a neat row.  
  
"The sauce," he says once the noodles have begun to cook, and you pull some neatly labeled jars of spices from your cupboard. You've lived alone for a long time now, and you know what you like. You are precise. You have your own way of doing things.  
  
Nudging him aside, you stir up the sauce with your powdered spices. He slips behind you to tend to the simmering pan on the stove, dumping in his roughly chopped vegetables and draining the noodles over the sink. You glance at him, laboring over the stove, and his shoulders are relaxed, his posture open. He looks content. You had forgotten that he could look like this.

(You used to do this all the time, you remember, _before_. You were younger then, less jaded. Natsuya, just as beautiful then as he is now, standing in your kitchen and wearing an apron and clumsily chopping vegetables, making a bit of a mess because he knew it got on your nerves. You would just laugh, maybe giving him a playful shove, but it wouldn’t be long before you’d be kissing like your lives depended on it, forgetting the food on the stove until one of you noticed the scent of something burning. This was before you learned how to stay mad at him, before you realized you would ever need to.)

 

When your meal is nearly ready, you boil the water for some tea. You know he would prefer something a little stronger, but you never keep alcohol in the house, not even saké or cooking wine. And anyway, as far as you know Natsuya has been sober since that first night. 

At the table, you reach for one of your textbooks. You've been behind in your studies (you can't let yourself slip, you can't let him do this to you,) but he grabs your wrist before you can.  
  
"Come on, I need to study, Natsuya," you tell him. "My life doesn't stop just because you decide to show up." (Doesn't it?)  
  
"Study later," he says, the spitting image of his 14-year-old self. "We made this together, so let's eat together." You surrender again, arm slackening in his grip, and he lets go.

 

(When Natsuya was studying in America, he used to call you all the time. One time, when you were 17, he read a poem to you over the phone.

 _You fit into me_ _  
_ _like a hook into an eye_

 _a fish hook_  
_an open eye_  
  
And you felt sick.  
  
_What does it mean?_ he asked. _I need to write about it for my English class, and it’s due tomorrow._  
  
_It’s easy_ , you wanted to say, _if you think about it like this: you are the hook, and I am the eye, and we are doomed._  
  
_I’m not going to do your homework for you_ is what you said instead.)

 

"I know you don't believe me," he says eventually, through a mouthful of noodles, "but I'm being serious this time."  
  
You say nothing.  
  
"What," he asks, "I'm not allowed to grow up and take some responsibility?" He looks you dead in the eye and you know he's trying to rattle you, to see you visibly flustered. But you, you are a master of outward control.  
  
All you're willing to give him is "So why now?"  
  
"Ikuya, partly," he answers, which both surprises you and doesn't. After all, Ikuya is the only thing in his life that he's managed not to abandon yet. ( _Well_ , says a tiny whisper in your heart, _aside from this_. Whatever this is.)  
  
You nod, finishing a forkful of vegetables before you speak. "Good, it's about time you stop being such a deadbeat." Your gaze remains sharp, but you temper it with a smile to show that your words are not all bite. Some bite, of course, but not all. You are also a master of nuance.  
  
“He’s struggling,” says Natsuya, and something in you shifts and softens. “I need to be here for him this time.”  
  
(You listen, and despite yourself you surrender a little more.)

After a beat of silence, you can’t help yourself. “You said partly.” You don’t dare elaborate any further. That would be giving him too much, and you can’t have that.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asks. You just shake your head at him, as if it doesn’t matter, and nothing more is said.

Once you finish eating, he collects the dishes and heads towards the kitchen without a word. You hear water running, the dishes bumping clumsily around in the sink, and the occasional muttered swear. He’s trying, you think. (But is that enough?)  
  
( _I’m home,_ he’s said, many many times before. He never has trouble making that decision, but there’s a wildness that lives inside of him, and he gets restless. It never sticks, and as much as you hope that it will be different, _home_ is just never enough for him.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Maybe it was always this way,_ you realize, you following him to the ends of the earth, clinging to the illusion of control. Maybe the tables never turned, and this is how it’s been all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natsuya is an idiot, Nao has anxiety, and there is lots of alcohol involved.

When he tells you about Hiyori, confused and doting and lonely and trying to take care of a brooding Ikuya, you can't help but feel pity. Truthfully, it's not uncommon - you feel sorry for most people, or at least anyone whose problems look vaguely like your own. It’s what makes you so great at giving advice. (You pity Hiyori, but you understand, too: you can easily sympathize with the torture that is being in love with a Kirishima.)

“It’s a bad idea," you tell him. "He's got enough to worry about as it is."  
  
"How do you know that? You haven't even met him."  
  
"I just know," you tell him. You put on your best approximation of yourself, calm and wise, but Natsuya knows you better than that.  
  
"That's bullshit," he says, "It's because you think we're hard to handle." He's not wrong.  
  
“You are,” you say. “Both of you.”  
  
The two of you wander the aisles of the supermarket, grocery list in hand. He's pushing the cart, of course, if only to sneak in foods that he knows you'd never willingly buy. It’s so hard to keep your guard up around him. You’ve been cooking dinner together for a few nights now, and if yesterday’s sad ramen was any indication, a grocery trip was long overdue. He’s leaning on the cart with his forearms, an expression of intense concentration on his face as he compares two flavors of some ridiculous imported American sweets. Here with you like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Here. Still. You have no idea what to make of this.

(Two days ago, you returned home from class to an empty apartment. _You knew it, you knew it, you-_ you didn’t even have the energy to be angry. Instead, you crumpled to the floor, defeated. You watched the daylight fade into darkness, but you couldn’t be bothered to turn on a light. You couldn’t believe you thought this time was different somehow. It wasn’t until the knocking on the door started - _go away,_ you groaned, but it persisted - that you felt at all compelled to move. But despite it all, you are control, you are grace, that is all you have, and so you fixed your hair and straightened your shoulders and opened the door.

There he was, like it was no big deal. He held out an envelope.

 _What,_ was all that you had the capacity to say.

 _I’m paying rent,_ he told you, and it took every ounce of your willpower to pretend that you didn’t immediately forgive him. _Now we can buy some sriracha. Also, I probably need my own key. Are you okay?)_

It’s been long enough now that people are beginning to notice that you’re different lately, somehow. In some ways, it’s good: you are starting to relax, to exhale, unclench your jaw. One of your classmates guessed that you've been getting laid, and while technically that’s _very_ true, it’s also much more than that. Natsuya is a force of nature, and you shine brightest when he is around. This has always been the case.

It’s the little things too, like cooking dinner together, and how he does the dishes every night (that’s new, for him). It’s him adjusting to your schedule, waking up in the mid-morning instead of mid-afternoon (though he still tries to throw your phone across the room at the sound of your 6 am alarm, but he’s Natsuya, and you can only expect so much). He has begun to fall effortlessly back into your life, and you are happy, you think. You must be happy. You are happy, so much so that it’s consuming you. (No, that’s not entirely right. You are the one letting this happen, you are choosing to surrender in little ways every day.)

“I wouldn’t trust him,” says a friend of yours, but that makes sense. You were the one who was there for her through the worst breakup of her life, and it was you who told her to settle for nothing less than she deserves. (Apparently you need to take your own advice.) You don’t know how to explain exactly _why_ this is different. All you know is that this is Natsuya, sunshine incarnate, and that you’ve loved him since before you understood what that meant.

(When you quit aikido and took up swimming instead, it was because that’s what he wanted to do. You had pretended to really mull it over, making a show of weighing your options before you gave him an answer, but the truth is that you had made the decision before you even finished processing the question. _Swim with me_ , he said, so you did.

Maybe it was always this way, you realize, you following him to the ends of the earth, clinging to the illusion of control. Maybe the tables never turned, and this is how it’s been all along. A terrifying thought, really.)

You leave the grocery store with three bags. The first two contain fruit and vegetables, some pork, some fish, some eggs, normal things that normal people eat. In the third one is a bag of wasabi mayonnaise flavored Doritos, a pack of melon cream soda, three boxes of hotcake mix, and a bottle of sriracha.

 

“Let’s do something tonight,” he says, and you know what that really means is that it’s been too long since his last drink. You could call him on this, but you know that would be admitting that you worry about him, and so you don’t.

“Why?” you ask instead.

“Do I need a reason to want to celebrate?”

“Yes, that’s usually how it works,” you tell him, setting the grocery bags down on the kitchen counter. He slides up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist, nuzzling his face into the crook of your shoulder.

“We can celebrate how pretty you look right now.”

You shrug him away. ( _Control_ , you remind yourself. You are nothing without control.) “I need to put these away,” you say, measured. “You can help, or you can get out of the kitchen.”

“Well, how about this,” he says, while stacking the vegetables in the fridge, “It’ll be two weeks tonight that I’ve been home. That’s a good enough reason, isn’t it?” He closes the fridge door. You already know you’ll have to reorganize it later, but it’s about the principle of the thing.

You know he’s right though, about tonight. It’s been two weeks exactly since he stumbled back into your life again (not that you’ve been keeping track). In the grand scheme of things two weeks is nothing, and you hate that you’ve already forgotten what it’s like to be without him. (But you have, you always do, it’s so easy.)

“You’re setting a very low bar for yourself, you know,” is what you say out loud.

“Hey,” he pouts, “I’ve been so good, and you know it.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as _good_ , but you have been acting like an adult for once,” you say, and so you give in. You surrender.

 

(In the autumn right after you turned 14, your vision began to blur. Some days you would open your eyes to find the world around you filtered through a strange cloudy softness. It wasn’t all the time, at least not at first. What you remember most from that point in time are the feelings: your fingers constantly icy from the chill of the autumn air, Natsuya’s messy hair tickling your face when he kissed you, but mostly the constant sensation of fear sitting heavy and secret and tight in your chest. You had your first panic attack, and then your next, and your next after that, and told no one.

When your vision problems finally became too frequent to ignore, the doctor said that you would need surgery. You didn’t cry, not even a little, and the nurse told you how brave you were. _I’m not brave_ , you thought, _just stupid_. Natsuya cried though, when you told him, and you held him in your arms until he calmed down. There was only so much crying that could be done, after all, and one of you needed to be the voice of reason. One of you needed to have some self control.)

 

At the bar that night, you surprise yourself by deciding to have a drink. It’s not something you do often, but maybe all of this loosening up you’ve been doing has been good for you. Natsuya orders for both himself and you, his usual beer and something else you’d never heard of before.

“Do you trust me?” he asks with a wink, after ordering.

“Despite my better judgement _,_ ” you say.

The drink he chose for you is fruity and light, and it only makes you wince a little when you take a sip. You hate anything bitter, and he knows that. Knows _you_ , all of these small things that make up the person that you are. You take another sip, and you feel warm.

In the time it takes you to finish half of your glass, he’s already downed his beer and is waiting on a second. You have no idea how he does it. You’re already starting to feel your thoughts rounding off at the edges, floating around your head in strange ways, and you need to pay close attention in order to follow them. It’s not unpleasant, just disorienting. You aren’t used to it. It’s a nice break though, you think, when your mind isn’t moving a million miles a minute, calculating, strategizing. You are here, he is here, this is nice. He’s here, with his loud laugh and boisterous chatter and magnetic energy, his smile so powerful it could light up all of Tokyo, so _real_ that it’s almost like he was never gone.

You finish your drink, and he finishes another. He orders more beer (you haven’t been paying attention, you don’t remember how many it’s been now) and a second one of whatever it was that you had been drinking. He reaches out to tuck a loose strand of your hair behind your ear, and his hand lingers even though you’re in public. He laughs. Did you say something funny? You don’t remember. He takes another sip. Is he really still drinking?

“Natsuya,” you say, and you like the sound of his name, so you nearly say it again before realizing that he would hear you.

“Hmm?” His face is close to yours now, so close. (Inwardly, you grasp desperately for your composure and come up empty handed. He’s so bright, so radiant, and you can’t look away. This time, there is no bluff for him to call.)

“Sometimes... I worry about you, you know.” You are acutely aware of how emotional you sound, but you have no power to stop yourself.

“Of course I know that,” he says. He puts a hand on your cheek, tilting your face up and looking you in the eyes. You feel so vulnerable, and you wonder again why he is the only one who can do this to you. “But you don’t need to. I’m okay, it’s okay.”

(You haven’t been drunk very many times in your life, but the first time was with him. Of course it was, he is always the one dragging you out of your comfort zone, always has been.

You were 16, nearly 17, visiting him in America. He had been doing this for a while, he assured you, it was fine. _A while?_ you asked, and he told you not to worry about it. Of course you were going to worry about it, you thought. You’d been worrying about him for most of your life now, and that wasn’t about to stop just because he said so.

The two of you sat on a blanket in an empty park under the cover of night, drinking something awful and bitter from a plastic water bottle. It didn’t take long for the warm, hazy feeling to wash over you, and suddenly this moment - you and Natsuya, the blanket and the dewdrops on the grass and the distant sounds of the city - this was all that existed. He flopped down onto his back, pulling you down with him and adjusting so that your head was resting on his chest. You could hear his heartbeat. You could hear your own heartbeat. You went tense.

 _You can’t just…_ you started to say, but he shushed you, running his fingers through your hair.

 _It’s okay,_ he said, _it’s different here. This is okay. Do you trust me?_

You said nothing, but you felt your body relax, melting into his touch. You did trust him, and he knew it too, and he was right: it was okay.)

 

You aren’t used to being drunk, and standing up is much more of an ordeal than it had any right to be. He holds onto your arm, steadying you.

“You alright?” he asks, and you nod.

“Not sure you’re much better than I am,” you say, your voice as measured as you can manage.

“S’okay,” he laughs, “We’ll help each other.”

The night air is crisp, and it hits you like a wall. You shiver, and he takes both of your hands in his own, sharing his warmth. He’s so warm, you think. The street looks more or less empty, so you let him do this for a moment before you pull away and remind him that someone might see.

“It’s fine,” he says, “For all they know, we might just be very drunk.”

“We _are_ drunk,” you tell him.

“Exactly!” he says. “So it’s fine.”

Even in your current state of mind you’re pretty sure his logic is flawed, but because you can’t line your thoughts up well enough to explain why, you go along with it anyway. You surrender, to the warmth of his hands and the warmth of his smile and the warmth of simpler memories.

It must have rained while you were at the bar, you notice, because the pavement is shiny and wet and the colors of the streetlights shift and shimmer, reflected hazily in the puddles on the ground. You wait to cross the road, and your heart feels light in your chest because when you look at his face in the glow of the neon lights of the city, he looks like pure magic. You feel clumsy. Your hand keeps bumping into his as you walk, completely by accident. Muscle memory, you think. At one point he slings his arm around your shoulders, and you let him keep it there. It’s romantic, in a way - not that much different from how it was with him years ago. So much has changed, and so much has stayed the same.

You fumble with your key once you reach the door of your apartment and it won’t quite fit into the lock. He puts his hand over yours again, guiding it into place even though he has his own key now.

“Cute,” he says, and you roll your eyes at him.

“It’s not,” you say. “We look ridiculous right now. Both of us.”

“So what? No one’s around to judge us.” He throws his bag and jacket onto the floor, and you raise an eyebrow at him. He doesn’t notice.

“I’m judging us,” you say, hanging up your own jacket and then reaching for his too. You might be drunk, but you refuse to be untidy. “We’re like a couple of stupid teenagers.”

“No offense, babe, but you’ve been like 40 years old for your entire life.”

“Hey,” you say indignantly, but you can’t seem to remember how you had been meaning to finish that sentence, so you don’t.

He flops down onto the couch, reaching out his hand for you to join him. You misjudge the distance and flop down as well, decidedly less elegant than you intended. He laughs at you, and you tousle his hair in retaliation. And then you’re kissing him. You don’t remember how it started, but his lips are warm and his tongue tastes bitter like the beer he was drinking. It’s a little messy, lacking your usual grace and power. That makes you nervous. You grab for his arm to pin him down, but you miss. He re-positions his hand, but for some reason your fingers feel awkward wrapped around his wrist. You frown.

“Hey,” he says, looking up at you. You stop what you’re doing. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say, “I’m just kind of…” you don’t know how to finish that sentence either. He looks you in the eyes, and he looks so sincere, so vulnerable.

“It’s okay,” he tells you, pulling you into a hug. “You don’t have to be like that all the time.”

“Like that?”

“You know, in control. It’s okay.”

(He’s wrong. Control is all you are, all you have.)

“Let me just-“

“It’s okay,” he says, and holds you close. “This is nice too.”

He’s right, it is.

 

(He was lying in your bed while you sat on the floor, packing your life into neatly labeled boxes for your move to Tokyo. You were 18, and he was here again, finally. After so long, so much waiting, so much hurting, finally you were building a life together.

“You need to take a break,” he said drowsily, “Come up here with me.”

“I’m taking this seriously,” you said, “unlike you. Have you even started packing?”

“About that,” he said, and the air in the room shifted.

“What about it,” you asked, but you already had a sinking feeling. You knew him well, too well.

“I‘m… I don’t know if...” he mumbled, hiding his face with his arm. It felt like the earth had fallen out from under you.

“Natsuya,” you said, but that’s all you said, because it was late and you knew that if you said any more your composure would break.

“I’m not ready, okay? I love you, but I just… I can’t do this yet. It’s not because of you, I love you so much, so so much, you have no idea. I-”

“Okay,” you said.

“Fuck,” he said, “I meant to… I wanted to talk about this,”

“You had plenty of time.” _Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t-_

“I wish I knew how to explain what... I love you. I can’t stay here. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s fine,” you said, and that was the last word you said for the rest of the night. He fell asleep in your bed, and hours later, you fell asleep on the floor. When you woke up the next morning, you were underneath your blanket, still on the floor, and your bed was empty.)

 

“You fit into me like a hook into an eye,” you recite, twirling your fingers through his unruly curls.

“Huh?” he says, sleepily.

“A fish hook,” you continue. “An open eye.”

“What is that?” he asks, more attentive now, trying to remember. “Where have I heard that?”

“You were 17, _”_ you say, words slurring together in your mouth, and his eyes widen. “You… needed to write an essay and you wanted my help.”

He grins, his cheeks flushed pink and his eyes full of admiration. “Babe,” he says, awestruck. “I can’t believe you remember that so well. You’re so smart. Fuck, I love you so much.”

You snort at this, and he shoves you lightly. You lean back against him, taking him off guard, and you flop down on top of him, your head landing in his lap. He giggles, you giggle, and you think that maybe this isn’t so bad.

“Did you?” he asks, after a beat of silence.

“Did I what?” you realize that you have already lost track of what you had been talking about just a moment ago.

“Did you help me?” he clarifies, “With the essay?”

Oh right. You had forgotten for a second: it’s not actually this easy, not really.

(Natsuya, _a fish hook_.)

“No,” you say. “I told you to do it yourself.” He kisses your forehead, and a shiver runs through your whole body.

“Sounds like something you’d say,” he says, “but you can’t fault me for trying.”

(You, _an open eye_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter absolutely kicked my ass because I had it all planned out and then Nao decided to go and get drunk and I had to rework the whole thing. I can’t leave these unruly boys alone for one minute can I?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Do you trust me?_ He interlaces his fingers with yours. 
> 
> (No. No, you don’t, not when it comes down to it. You haven’t for a long time. You’re not sure you ever truly can again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re crying, and I’m crying, then who’s flying the plane?

The first thing you notice when you wake up is that you’re still on the couch. Your hair is decidedly less than perfect, your glasses are nowhere to be found, and you’re still wearing your clothes from last night. The next thing you notice is that Natsuya is not there. You sit up, and you suddenly feel like you’ve been hit by a train. The sun filters through the window, already sitting high in the sky and scattering in beams from the particles in the air. You notice that you really need to dust. It’s been too long since you’ve dusted. It’s so bright out, you don’t even want to think about what time it is. You lie back down.

Your thoughts come slow and sluggish, as if your brain is sludging through tar. _Last night_ , you think. And then, _What about last night? What happened?_ You know that something happened, but everything feels blurry. A feeling of dread sits heavy in your stomach, an abstract realization that things have been going too well for too long. You close your eyes and begin an excavation process back through your memories.

(At the bar, _Do you trust me?_ asks Natsuya. You tell him yes. A fruity drink, and another, and you lose count of his. _Sometimes I worry about you._ Oh no. Walking home, he grabs your hands and you let him, gravitating to each other like magnets. In your apartment, feeling clumsy. Why was that? Oh. Oh no. Fumbling through kissing him, panicking. He holds you close. No no no no- _A fish hook, an open eye_. Lying in his lap, blissful for a moment, before you remember. Something changes, you go tense and he knows, he knows something is wrong. Fuck. _Talk to me,_ he says.

_I can’t, Natsuya. I can’t._

Soft kisses on your forehead, soft hands in your hair, soft, the scent of beer and citrus and him, soft, _I love you_ , the feeling of sleep washing over you like a wave. Soft, safe. _I love you too._ No, oh no, oh shit no no no- soft, soft, and then nothing.)

You open your eyes, a sick feeling settling over you. He knows. You have no power left, no composure, no control. You told him. You lost.

 

(You were 18, it was 12:30 am, and the phone rang. You grabbed it from your night table and answered, half-awake. You couldn’t not answer, because who else would it be?

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said when you answered the phone. You could practically hear his sunny grin.

“Try again, dearest. Do you even know what time it is here?”

“It’s…” he trailed off, and for a few seconds there was only silence. “Time to talk to me?”

You laughed. “It’s past midnight. I don’t understand how you still don’t think about this after _years_. You’re lucky I picked up the phone at all.”

“Aw, were you sleeping? I didn’t mean to wake you up. You’re so pretty when you’re sleeping.”

“I was,” you said. “I could have just muted this call.”

“But you didn’t. Is it because you love me so much?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Hey!” he exclaimed, outraged, and you laughed again. “Anyway, only a few more months until this time difference thing won’t ever matter again, so I’m not wasting my time figuring it out now.”

“Oh thank goodness,” you said, “then you’ll be able to wake me up at all hours of the night _in person.”_

“Yup, to give you kisses. Every hour, on the hour. To make up for lost time.”

You listened to him talk excitedly about his upcoming graduation, promising to send you the photos from his prom and telling you not to worry because he won’t overdo it at the afterparty. “I don’t worry about you,” you mumbled sleepily. That was a lie, and he knew it too.

“All you do is worry about me,” he laughed.

“Mm, and I still get stuff done. Imagine how productive I would be if you could take care of yourself.” He made a noise at that, and you knew he was pouting on the other side of the line.

You felt yourself gradually succumbing to the lull of sleep and the comforting sound of his voice, cradling the phone against your ear. By the time he told you he had to go to class, you were barely conscious. “I love you so much,” he said. “Sleep well. I’ll be there with you soon.”

“Love you too,” you managed, before passing out, and you drifted into a warm, content sleep.)

 

Eventually you drag yourself off the couch. The hot water of the shower has never felt so amazing before. (You consider just never getting out. It would certainly be a lot simpler.) You stand in the warmth for as long as you can handle, until the heat starts making you feel faint and the edges of your vision are beginning to go dark. You pull on your softest sweater, comb your hair, and breathe deeply. You feel dizzy. The front door opens, and then closes. You know that you can’t avoid this forever.

“Oh, hey!” says Natsuya as you walk into the living room, as poised as you can manage. “You’re awake. I just ran out to grab some stuff I figured you might need today.” He tosses you a plastic bottle. You wince, but you catch it. “It has electrolytes, it’ll make you feel better.”

You lower yourself onto the couch and take a sip. It tastes vaguely of lime and artificial sweetener. It’s not horrible. “I’m fine, Natsuya.”

“You’re hungover,” he says. “But don’t worry, it gets easier every time.”

“There won’t be another time,” you say. He ignores you.

“And here,” he rummages in his backpack a moment, and pulls out a paper bag with a takeout box inside. “I got breakfast. I figure it’s fair, since you paid for all the food we ordered last week.” He hands you the bag, and you look inside.

“What… is it?”

He grins. “Cheeseburger fried rice. It took me forever to find a place around here that sells it.”

It looks disgusting, and exactly like the sort of thing he would love. “I don’t want this.”

“Shh,” he says, “it’ll help. Trust me, I’ve been through my fair share of hangovers, I know what I’m doing.”

You break apart your chopsticks, open the box, and surrender. “Why aren’t you as miserable as I am?”

“I know my limits.” He fills up a glass of water at the sink, sets it on the coffee table in front of you, and leans over to kiss your forehead. You recoil immediately. You had almost forgotten. Almost. It all comes back to you again, a shot of ice cold clarity through your muddled thoughts.

“Are…you okay?” asks Natsuya.

“I’m fine,” you say again. You can feel your heartbeat in your head, each beat an aching zap. You feel sick. You are not fine.

“No, you’re not,” he says, sitting down next to you. “You’re not okay. Something has been up with you, it’s not hard to tell. But since you won’t talk about it and you won’t give me anything to work with, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do.”

You poke at the greasy rice in the box with your chopsticks, and you say nothing. (He’s right. You are not okay. You haven’t been okay since the night he told you he couldn’t stay. He knows this.)

He persists. “Nao, babe, the closest you’ve gotten to acting like a normal person in a while was last night when you were drunk. Even I know that’s not a good sign.”

“Can we… not talk about this right now?”

“Do you realize that was the first time you said ‘I love you’ back, this whole time? Actually,” he pauses to think, “actually I can’t remember the last time before this.”

(You can. You were 18, and it was the day after everything was ruined.)

“I was drunk,” you reply coolly. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”

He sighs, exaggeratedly. “That’s not the problem. That’s the opposite of the problem.”

“Are you going to let me eat this? I doubt it gets any more appetizing as it gets cold.”

“Look,” he says, and you wonder where he gets the gall to be lecturing you right now. “I know you have this calm, stoic image to maintain, but it’s just _me._ I know you love me, and _you_ know you love me, so this shouldn’t be so much of a big deal, and I don’t really understand why it is.”

He looks you in the eyes, and inwardly your heart is pounding in your chest, you feel sick and faint and you want nothing more in this world than to just melt, to surrender, to go back to how it used to be. (It would be so, so easy. The easiest thing in the world.) But you can’t. There is only so much that your heart can handle.

“We’re long past that,” is what you say instead. “And my head hurts, and I haven’t eaten anything yet today. Can we drop this?”

He gives your hand a squeeze and stands up. “I meant what I said last night. You don’t always have to be in control.” He walks into your room, closes the door.

(But you do, you know you do, because you have always had to have enough control for the both of you.)

 

(That morning when you were 18, when you woke up on you bedroom floor with an empty bed and an empty place in your heart, you didn’t cry. Instead, you finished packing up all of your boxes. You didn’t check your phone all day, and you didn’t leave your room until dinner time. That night, you biked to Natsuya’s house.

The two of you walked to a nearby park and sat in the damp grass. Neither of you said very much, but he cried, and you held him in your arms just like you did when you were both 14.

“I still love you,” you said. “You know I’m always going to love you, whether I like it or not.”

“I love you too,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m like this. I don’t know why. But I love you.”)

 

It’s strange to think about, but time is still moving forward. The sun is starting to set by the time you finish your first meal of the day, casting your apartment with an orange glow. You take a couple of painkillers and sit down with your textbooks. Orange light fades to blue, then grey, then dark. You don’t move, except to turn the pages. When Natsuya eventually wanders into the living room and sees you, he tells you that you’ll wreck your eyes if you study in the dark. You tell him he’s a few years too late on that one and they’re already wrecked. He says not to be stupid, that you’re starting to sound like him. Soft light floods the room as he walks past you and into the kitchen.

For a while you can hear him bumping around in there, clattering dishes and running the water for too long. You don’t move. (Why is he doing this? Why is he still here at all?) Finally he emerges, setting two bowls on the table and sitting next to you on the floor.

“Whatever this whole thing is, we don’t have to talk about it,” he says. “But hangovers suck, and you need to eat, and I worry about you too. So… truce?”

Steam rises from the bowl, carrying the smell of meat and spices with it. You’re hungry, and he is trying. (Is it enough? Will it ever be enough?)

You sigh. “Alright.”

The donburi he made turned out passable, decent if you’re being generous, but you’re starving now that the nausea has passed. He fills the silence with chatter about Ikuya and Hiyori and some of the other boys you knew from Iwatobi Junior High. They’re having their own issues right now, a mess of jealousy and hurt feelings and miscommunications. It’s strange to think about how despite everything else, the world is still turning, and life will go on. They will all wake up tomorrow morning, and so will Natsuya, and so will you. You tell him this.

“What, as if there’s an another option?” he says, in true Natsuya fashion.

(The sun doesn’t care how dark or cold the night before was, it will always rise, and with it comes daylight. It doesn’t know of any other way, it only shines, regardless.)

 

You hate to admit it, but he’s right again: you do feel better now, and you’re relieved. If he’s willing to pretend that nothing happened, so are you. (No, more than that, you’re determined to.)

 _Hey,_ you say as you climb into bed. You straddle his lap and kiss him deeply, grabbing a fistful of his hair and giving it a light tug. His body responds, hips bucking up to meet you. A soft moan escapes his lips. For the first time all day, you feel like yourself.

He runs his hand up your thigh and you pointedly stop moving, using your free hand to grab his wrist. _Did I say that you could touch me yet?_ He whimpers in response, getting impatient. _No,_ you say, _I didn’t._ You push him back so he’s lying down. Still holding his wrist, you shift your weight so that it’s pinning that arm down and slowly you begin to kiss and lick your way across his collarbone.

 _Nao,_ he breathes. You sink your teeth into his shoulder, and he gasps.

Once you find your rhythm, it’s easy. This is how it should be, you think, this is the thing that you need. This is all you need. (It’s fine. Everything is fine.) Nobody could possibly know him as intimately as you, not enough to render him this vulnerable, as pliable as he is underneath you right now. No one else could do this to him, not as well as you do.

(Could they?)

 _You’re mine_ , you tell him, giving his hair another tug. _I own you_. He arches his back, pulling your hips down to bring you deeper inside of him.

 _Fuck,_ he says. _I love you, so damn much._ You freeze, just for an instant, but he notices. He opens his eyes, looking directly into yours. (He knows you just as intimately, you realize. You forgot this goes both ways.) He reaches a hand up to your face, runs a thumb across your lower lip. You shiver, and he notices that too.

 _What-_ you say, and he says _shhh_ , and the tables turn. Just like that, so easily.

You say nothing.

 _Do you trust me?_ He interlaces his fingers with yours.

(No. No, you don’t, not when it comes down to it. You haven’t for a long time. You’re not sure you ever truly can again.)

You open your mouth to say something, anything, but what comes out instead is a sob. ( _No no no no no, not now, not this-_ )  
  
You untangle your fingers from his, bringing your hands to your face instead. Your cheeks are wet, and tears are dripping down your chin and onto his chest. You can’t move. You can’t think.

“Nao?” he says, but it feels like you’re underwater. “Shit, what’s going on? Is everything okay? I-“

When you try to answer, you realize you aren’t making any sense. It’s less like you’re speaking and more like you’re watching at a distance, from above, from outside. He’s sitting up, he wraps his arms around you and instinctively you push him away and wrap your blanket around yourself instead, like it’s protective armor. Something in you registers that he looks hurt, but you can’t bring yourself to care. (That’s a lie. You do, but you wish you didn’t.)

His eyes go wide. “I don’t-” He interrupts himself, tries again. “You... What’s wrong?” You can sense the panic in his voice. Normally this is when your instincts would kick in, your levelheadedness would take over, but nothing is happening. Tears are still silently streaming down your face, entirely out of your control. You have no control left, no calm or composure. You are exhausted, you have been exhausted for much longer than you care to admit.

(And what do you have, without control? You have nothing, you are nothing.)  
  
“Natsuya, what are you trying to do?” you finally ask. He blinks, says nothing. “I mean it, I really want to know. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Doing…”

“ _Any_ of this,” you say. “Staying here in my apartment, cooking dinner, doing the dishes, doing _this,_ ”

He looks at you like you’re not making any sense. “Babe, this was the plan all along. Wasn’t it? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. Obviously I’m not okay.” You’re still crying. You don’t know how to physically _stop_ crying, at this point.

“I didn’t realize- did I do something wrong?” he asks, and you can’t help but laugh bitterly. Only he would ask something like that right now.

“It took a long time, you know, to accept the way things are between us now. And it’s been _awful_. Not for you I’m sure, but it is for me. But you don’t think about any of that, do you?”

“I-“

“Don’t answer that. There’s no right answer. And then you show up and start acting like any of this matters to you, what do you think that does to me, Natsuya? Do you think it’s easy, having to wonder what parts of all of this are real and what ones are things you just say to anybody?”

You stop to take a breath, and another sob escapes your mouth. It’s pathetic. You feel pathetic right now, naked and curled up in a blanket and yelling at the person you’ve loved so deeply for so long that you’ve never quite figured out who you are without him. He reaches out to touch your shoulder, hesitates.

“Can I touch you?”

“No.”

“Okay,” he says. “First of all, what are you talking about, _anybody_? I’m not here with just anyone, I’m here with you. Because I love you, that’s old news. Which part of that isn’t making sense?” You have to give him credit, he’s making a good show of pretending to be calm. You know his composure is fake though, you know all the tells. You have been doing this for years.

“The part where we never actually got back together, Natsuya. What the _hell_ are we?”

“We broke up?”

_What?_

“You broke up with me when we were 18,” you say. “You’re telling me you just _forgot?_ What do you think we’ve been _doing_ since then? What’s wrong with you?”

“Oh fuck Nao, I…” his attempts at composure crumble instantly. “I wasn’t leaving _you._ I was leaving Japan but I was never leaving you.” His eyes widen with realization, and he opens his mouth a few times, but no sound comes out. “Wait,” he finally manages, “you thought we broke up, does that-“ He looks up at you, looks you in the eyes, and he looks so, so vulnerable. “Have... you been with anyone else?”

_Oh._

You look away. “Fuck,” he says. “Holy fuck. This whole time I-“ his voice breaks, “I’ve been telling everyone about how much I love my boyfriend back in Japan, how much I miss you, how perfect and tolerant and understanding-“ He sniffles. You feel like you’re being crushed under the weight of everything. “And you’ve been, what, dating?”

“Not… _dating,_ exactly,” you say, but this somehow sounds even worse. “Look, I never stopped loving you, Natsuya. Even when I thought you would never come back.” You feel fragile, like you’re made of glass.

“I need to-“ he stands up. “I need a moment.” He goes to say something, stops himself, and then reconsiders again. “Will… you be okay?” You nod. “Alright,” he says. “It’s okay. I’m going to come back. I just need to think first, I don’t want to screw this up again.” You watch as he haphazardly gets dressed, grabbing whatever from the floor. He leaves the room, and shortly after you hear the front door close.

You have some thinking to do, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That moment where Natsuya hesitates before explaining what’s going on? That’s where I, the little gremlin who lives in his brain, am screaming at him to please, for the love of god, communicate with his boyfriend.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Maybe it’s not just about Natsuya,_ says a small voice in your head, and it’s right. Maybe your problem lives inside of you, just like his problems live inside of him, and they’ve just managed to tangle together to the point where they feel like they’re one in the same, twisting into an insurmountable knot. You can’t seem to pinpoint the place where his messy emotions end and your own wants and needs begin.
> 
> So, what _do_ you want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nao processes his emotions for the first time in his life.

The next morning, he texts you: _I’m coming home now. Is that ok?_

You surprise yourself by texting back, _No, not yet._

 _Ok,_ he says, _There’s somewhere I can stay for a while if I need to. Let me know. I miss you._

Up until a day ago, you never would have expected to be the one telling him to stay away, but today you find yourself in the unfamiliar position of putting your own emotional needs first. It’s something that you’re only now realizing you have no idea how to navigate. You’ve been alone in the quiet stillness of your empty apartment, sprawled ungracefully on the floor of the living room, wondering how you’ve somehow managed to go your entire life without learning how to hold space for your own feelings.

(It didn’t take long, of course, to come up with an answer. But it’s the same answer that you use for most of the questions in your life: _Natsuya_. For the first time, you realize that’s not enough.)

It’s early morning. Normally, you would be waking up now, getting ready for your day. Today, you can’t. You’ve skipped your classes more during these past few weeks than in all of your other semesters combined, and you wonder if maybe there’s a boundary there, somewhere, that you need to figure out how to set. The sun is rising. The golden pink glow it casts across the white walls of your apartment is familiar now, a reminder that time is passing, the world is turning, things are moving forward. (You are moving forward, whether you want to or not.) You’ve been watching the sunrise often, lately.

You dig deeper into your feelings, expand on your earlier thoughts, try again. _Natsuya,_ you think again, _but what is it about Natsuya?_ You try to recall the last time, other than the disaster that was last night, that you talked to him seriously about your feelings without holding anything back. You draw a blank. _Why?_

(What would you tell someone else, right now, if they asked you for the same advice? There, that’s a question that makes sense to you.)

 _What are you afraid of?_ _What do you expect to happen, and why would it be worse than avoiding your own needs?_ The questions sit heavy in your chest from the moment you ask them. Is this how everyone else feels, when they come to you with their problems? _This is part of the necessary work of healing_ , you tell the poor hypothetical fool in your head, the one who is definitely not you. _The only way past the pain is straight ahead through it._

(It’s much easier being on the other side of this.)

 

Eventually you realize that you should probably make breakfast. In the kitchen you turn on the kettle, wash some vegetables, crack an egg into your frying pan, normal things that normal people do. You try to remember what it is that _you_ used to do in the long stretches of time when he wasn’t around. You can’t do that, either. Instead, you think about _Natsuya,_ asking you to swim with him and not taking no for an answer. Natsuya moving to America, insisting on acting like nothing was changing until the day he left. Natsuya leaving you alone on the morning after he broke your heart, never clarifying what had happened.

(Natsuya, sobbing in your arms when you were 14 and you finally told him about your eyes.

 _Why didn’t you say anything sooner?_ he managed, through his tears. You ran your hand through his hair comfortingly, making sure to keep your voice level as you answered him, attempting to still the waves of panic in your chest.

 _I’ll be fine,_ you told him, _I didn’t want you worrying about me. They’re going to fix it, and I’ll be back to normal soon. See? I’m not worried about it, am I?_

_You’re not._

_So, you shouldn’t be either,_ you said, and kissed the top of his head.)

Back on the floor with your tea and your breakfast, your thoughts wrap themselves around you in a web. They feel thick and heavy and overwhelming, painful, but clear and true. Things that you’ve known, deep down, for a very long time.

 _Maybe it’s not just about Natsuya,_ says a small voice in your head, and it’s right. Maybe your problem lives inside of you, just like his problems live inside of him, and they’ve just managed to tangle together to the point where they feel like they’re one in the same, twisting into an insurmountable knot. You can’t seem to pinpoint the place where his messy emotions end and your own wants and needs begin.

So, what _do_ you want?

(You’ve seen this before, watched it play out at the time with a sinking feeling of understanding. The sidelong glances steeped with equal parts adoration and worry, the doting behavior, the same well-practiced reassuring smile that you had been noticing more and more on your own face, too. _Do you like swimming?_ you asked, choking down the other question you didn’t dare to speak: _Do I?_ )

You’ve never been very good at taking care of yourself, but maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. The realization feels like a breath of air after being underwater, or like finally opening your eyes to the stark brightness of a hospital room after a week of darkness: _you are not made of stone._ And with that realization comes another: _you don’t have to be._

There’s someone you need to talk to.

 

Not much time has passed since you ran into Makoto at the pool, but you’re once again struck by just how much he’s grown up when you see him enter the cafe. Not just in stature, but in how he carries himself, moving through the world with a sense of assurance that was not there before.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, setting his coffee down on the table. You tell him it’s fine.

“Makoto,” you say, “There’s something I want to ask you.” You take a deep breath, exhale. “How have things been with Haru? Ever since… well,” you cut off, unsure of how to ask the question on your mind, unsure of what exactly it even is.

He laughs gently. “Since you made me realize I was in love with him.”

You smile, only partly an act. “You could put it that way, yes.”

“Haru and I…” he says, feeling around for what you might actually be asking. He’s smart, he can tell it’s not really that simple. “It’s been good. We’re still adjusting to the city life, but we’re happy. Why?”

You have never asked for advice like this before. You have no idea how to do this. “Nat-“ you start, but that was too much. You can’t find the words. You arrange your demeanor back into something more calm and controlled before trying again. “No reason.”

He looks at you, and you see something shift in his expression. He understands. (After all, if anyone could understand your problem, to some degree at least, it’s him.)

“Ah,” he says. “Well, I think it’s gotten easier, now that we aren’t so codependent anymore. We’ve been working on that. We had our first real fight, actually,” he admits. “Last year. A pretty big one.”

You say nothing, but your silence is as good of a confirmation as any. You know that neither of you are under any illusions about why this conversation is happening. You both know it’s not just about Makoto, not just about Haru, not really.

“It was… about our future,” he continues. “Well. About my future.”

“You didn’t want to decide without him,” you say, filling in the blanks. Makoto nods.

(You think about your small apartment, your solitary routine, the years you’ve spent subconsciously rearranging your life around Natsuya’s whims like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and you understand.)

“But you did manage to sort it all out.”

Makoto smiles, soft, the smile he still seems to reserve for all things Haru. You try to imagine feeling anything that pure, so unguarded and lacking in resentment. You imagine it feels nice.

“I thought about what you said, actually, back when you asked me about why I swim,” he tells you. “I thought about that, and about what _I_ wanted, and I made a choice. I don’t think either of us really expected that, but I’m glad that I did.”

“Back then,” you say, carefully, “do you know why I asked you that question?”

“I didn’t at the time. But… I think I get it, now.” He doesn’t elaborate on that, and neither do you. You’re thankful that you don’t need to.

Eventually, he speaks again. “Anyway, I think… hmm. I think that if you never talk about your boundaries, how will anyone know what they are? I could only communicate what I was feeling and trust him to be able to handle it.”

You watch his quiet confidence as he speaks about a topic so vulnerable, and any regret you felt about prompting such a crisis for him years ago is finally put to rest. The big difference between the two of you, you think, is this: he dealt with his issues before they had the chance to swallow him whole.

(You think about the smile that he saves for Haru, and you wonder, again, how you look when you talk about Natsuya.)

As you’re leaving, you look him in the eyes, pleasant but firm. “I’d prefer if you didn’t mention this to anyone.”

Makoto looks back at you knowingly, but his expression remains warm and kind. “Mention what?”

 

(You sat on the floor of Natsuya’s room, a week after your 14th birthday and two weeks after his. The two of you were watching a movie, something stupid and American about robots who either had guns or _were_ guns, you weren’t quite sure. Natsuya chose the movie, as usual. You were sitting upright, leaning against the bed, playing with his hair as he lay sprawled across your lap.

Natsuya watched the movie. You watched the way the light from the tv danced across Natsuya’s face. You had been agonizing for months now, possibly longer, trying to define and dissect and make sense of the mess of things he made you feel, but you knew there was really only one way to figure it out for sure.

“Hey _,_ ” you said, and he turned over to face you.

“What’s up?” he asked, and before you could think better of it, you leaned down and kissed him. His lips were softer than you had expected. The angle was awkward, half upside-down. His hair was tickling your face.

“Sorry _,_ ” you said, when you sat up. Your heart was beating a million miles a minute. “I just needed to know _.”_

“Know what?” asked Natsuya, somehow unaffected.

“Whether or not I like you like _that_.” You took a deep breath, readying yourself for the worst. “I think I do.”

“Yeah,” he said, with the same confused expression he often wore when you were helping him with math homework. “Obviously. And I like you too. Isn’t that why we’re…” he made a vague gesture that you assumed was referring to the two of you cuddling on his floor.

 _Oh._ “Right,” you said, smiling calmly, as if it didn’t suddenly feel like the blood in your veins had been replaced by electricity. You wanted to scream or cry or laugh or grin like an idiot. You wanted to kiss him a million more times, never stop kissing him ever again. “Yeah, it is.”

“Cool,” he said, and turned his attention back to the movie.)

 

A day passes, and another. You go about your life, you don’t text him, you try to make sense of yourself. A part of you is still worrying about him. You examine the worry, let yourself feel it without acting on it. What are you afraid of? You’re afraid, you realize, because you don’t trust him. You don’t trust him to handle your feelings _and_ his own. (You never have. You never even gave him the chance to try.)

He texts you again, eventually. _I miss you. Are you ok?_

You don’t reply, not yet.

A little later, he texts again: _Should I pick up my stuff? I still have my key. You don’t have to see me if you don’t want to._

You think about it, seriously, for the first time. You owe it to yourself to at least consider the option. What do _you_ want? You hold all the cards now. You have the power to decide.

(A scene plays out in your mind, a story of moving on. He picks up his things, leaves your apartment, the city, and your life. You pick up the pieces one by one. It’s hard work, but you work hard. You cook for only yourself, you stop missing classes, start spending more time with your friends instead of alone with your textbooks. Maybe you meet someone, maybe you don’t, it doesn’t matter. You devote yourself to healing: you are alone but not lonely, filling your life with new experiences and new people.

This is a choice that you could make. You are strong, you always have been, and you know deep down now that you could be okay without him. But is that what you want?)

You stare at your phone, reading his texts over and over. It’s only now that you are here, the one holding all the power for the very first time, that you realize this is not what you want. Not power, not control. This has never been what you’ve actually wanted.

 _Come home,_ you tell him, finally. _Let’s talk._

He shows up at the door less than an hour later, knocking as if he doesn’t have his own key. Dark circles of exhaustion line his eyes, and his hair is even more of a mess than usual. You let him in.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” you repeat back.

He’s still wearing the sweater he grabbed from the floor the last time he was here. It’s one of yours, a soft beige cardigan that doesn’t suit him at all. He fidgets with the buttons and doesn't meet your gaze.

“So, I think I understand that poem now,” he says, at last. “The one about the fish hook.”

 

You are terrible at being vulnerable, but you owe it to yourself to try, so you search for the words for the things that you have been leaving unspoken for years. He cries, of course. You wouldn’t expect him not to, but what surprises you is how he listens. You can tell he’s been thinking about some things too. Something inside your heart shifts, softens. _You don’t always have to be in control._ You decide to trust him, trust that he can handle this.

“I was really worried when you started crying the other day,” he says. “And I realized, that’s the first time I’ve seen you cry.” He pauses, looks away. “That’s my fault, isn’t it?”

You nod, tight lipped. He sighs and runs his hand through his hair.

“One of us had to have some self-control,” you say. “You feel so much, all the time, that there’s no space for me to be scared or upset or uncertain.” You look him in the eyes. In this moment, you are all of those things. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” he says, “it’s not. Sorry I didn’t figure that out sooner.”

“I'm sorry I didn’t tell you."

The two of you sit in silence. Thick lines of sunlight splay themselves across the room lazily, and the sound of passing cars drifts up from the street below.

“When I needed surgery on my eyes… I was terrified,” you say. “I had panic attacks all the time.” The words come out small, unlike yourself.

“Why didn’t you…” he trails off, likely remembering his own reaction to the news. “Oh.”

“I should have trusted you to handle it,” you tell him. “Even if you handled it badly.”

“I should have given you the space to handle it badly too.”

You nod. He understands.

“How am I doing now?” he asks. He sniffles a little, but he’s making a valiant effort to hold it together. It’s a start.

You laugh, reaching over to put your hand over his. “You’re trying,” you say. “That counts for something.”

(Your emotions crash turbulently around inside of you, swirling beneath the surface like an undertow. _What do you have left, without control?_ Authenticity, you think. Worry, sadness, anger, happiness, fear, love. Vulnerability is a raw and uncharted thing, but you are not made of stone. _You don’t need to be_.)

 

“So, what... are we?” he asks eventually. He sounds nervous, much more awkward than you’re used to from him.

“That depends," you tell him. "I love you. I know that you didn’t mean to hurt me, but you did, and it's going to take a while to fix that.”

“That’s fine,” he says.

“Okay,” you say. “I want to be with you. But if this is going to be anything, there’s something we need to talk about first, this time.”

“I’m listening."

“No more assumptions. We need to communicate with each other. I can’t keep holding things in, and you can’t keep running away from every problem. I... can’t go through all of that again, Natsuya. And I won’t. Do you understand?” 

He nods.

“Can I trust you?” you ask.

He doesn’t answer right away, and in a strange way, that actually feels better. More honest, like he really is taking it seriously this time.

You take it all in: Natsuya, sitting cross legged on the sofa, wearing a beige sweater that fits just a little too tight. Tea colored eyes still glassy from crying, messy hair long past due for a haircut, freckles dusting lightly along the bridge of his nose. He’s looking away from you, his features arranged in an expression of concentration. He’s thinking.

“Yeah,” he says finally, his eyes meeting yours again, “you can trust me.” He looks earnest, unguarded, genuine. _You can trust me_ , he says, and despite your better judgement, you do.

(Is it enough? You want to say it is, but it’s more important to be honest. Maybe it’s not, not yet, but it could be.)

 

Days go by, weeks, months. Somewhere along the line, you stop keeping track. Time moves forward. You surrender to compromise, to routine, to forgiveness. So does he. He is still here, still real, still trying. _Is it enough?_

You study, he works, time passes. He encourages you to go out with friends, to engage with your own life, to talk about the things you’re feeling as you’re feeling them. You start forgetting to keep track of who has the upper hand. You run out of sriracha, so you buy a new bottle. He lets you try again to teach him how to play chess, and this time he does his best to listen to your explanation. It doesn’t help - he’s still awful at it, but you appreciate the effort. You realize at some point that it stops feeling like he’s trying to make up for something, no longer walking on eggshells, but you welcome the new easy sense of balance.

When you talk about him lately, you catch yourself smiling, soft, genuine. You were right, it does feel nice.

 

In December you sit cozy under the kotatsu, sipping tea and leafing through a textbook while he scrolls his laptop next to you. He turns to face you, uncharacteristically hesitant. He’s been thinking of taking a trip overseas, he tells you. A short one, he specifies, and you’re welcome to come along, he’ll even buy your ticket if you want, and he would understand if-

You shush him, smiling, and lean over to kiss his forehead. He blinks at you in surprise.

“Go,” you say, “it’s okay. I’m not worried.” You hold his hand between yours, look him in the eyes. “I trust you.” The words come more easily than you expected. They feel solid, real, true.

“It’ll only be for two weeks,” he says, and you remember when two weeks felt huge, monumental. Now, it feels insignificant.

You meet him at the airport on the day he arrives home. He kisses you hello, and for once it doesn’t feel desperate, frantic, like he’s filling the deep emptiness that he left behind. (For the first time, there is no emptiness to fill.)

  
One morning you wake up and realize it’s been a year, today, and he’s still here. Still real. It’s early morning, and you take in the glow of the sunrise streaming through your windows, the soft hush of the small hours of the morning, his steady breathing as he lies next to you. You look over at him sleeping, more quiet and still and peaceful than he has ever been while awake, and you realize: _it is enough, now. It is._

You lean over, kiss him awake.

“Babe,” he whines, “it’s so early. What are you doing?”

“Making up for lost time,” you say, and you kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's been exactly a month since I started this fic. So much has happened in that month, and I'm so thankful for the unexpected and unanticipated sense of community that this project has brought. It started as a short vent piece on a day I was feeling especially low, and it's turned into so much more than that. 
> 
> Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who has read this, commented, left kudos, reached out in some way, or even just been here for the process.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at @sagesprouts on twitter and talk to me about anime boys.


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